
i AND THE 
W YORK HERALD 




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COPYRIGHT DEPOSn. 



LINCOLN 

AND THE 

NEW YORK HERALD 

UNPUBLISHED LETTERS OF 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

FROM THE COLLECTION OF 
JUDD STEWART 



Privately Printed 

PLAINFIELD, NEW JERSEY 

1907 












[LIBRARY of OOI 
Two Cecies Received 

DEC 18 I907 
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-i XXc, N 

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)OPY B. 



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Copyright, 1907, by 
THE LINCOLN FELLOWSHIP 



The letters reprinted herein are 
from the Gettysburg Edition of 
The Complete Works of Abraham 
Lincoln and are reproduced through 
the courtesy of the Francis D, Tandy 
Company, The letters given in fac- 
simile, which perhaps complete all 
that Lincoln ever wrote upon this 
incident, have never heretofore been 
published. They were written to 
George G, Fogg, who was Secretary 
of the first Republican National 
Convention, 

In order that this incident in the 
Great Martyr s career may be pre- 
se?ited in as interesting a form as 
possible, the Ambrotype of Lincoln 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

taken August Ijth y i860 (three 
days before his letter for the New 
York Herald) now in the collectio?i 
of Major William H, Lambert of 
Philadelphia, is used as a frontis- 
piece. 

These letters of Lincoln telling of 
his boyhood, of his pare?its — his 
father in particular — a?id showing 
his great forbearance under a false 
imputation, seem to justify the pub- 
lication of them as a separate addi- 
tio?i to the great number of volumes 
on his life and work, 

Judd Stewart. 

Plainfield, Nov. 7, 190J. 



L«] 



Letters to 
Samuel Haycraft 

(Private) 

Springfield, Illinois, 

May 28, i860. 

Dear Sir: 

Your recent letter, without date, 
is received. Also the copy of your 
speech on the contemplated Daniel 
Boone Monument, which I have not 
yet had time to read. In the main 
you are right about my history. My 
father was Thomas Lincoln, and 
Mrs. Sally Johnston was his second 
wife. You are mistaken about my 
mother. Her maiden name was 
Nancy Hanks. I was not born at 
Elizabethtown, but my mother's 
[9] 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

first child, a daughter, two years 
older than myself, and now long 
since deceased, was. I was born 
February 12, 1809, near where Hog- 
ginsville (Hodgensville) now is, then 
in Hardin County. I do not think 
I ever saw you, though I very well 
know who you are— so well that I 
recognized your handwriting, on 
opening your letter, before I saw the 
signature. My recollection is that 
Ben Helm was first clerk, that you 
succeeded him, that Jack Thomas 
and William Farleigh graduated in 
the same office, and that your hand- 
writings were all very similar. Am 
I right? 

My father has been dead near ten 
years; but my step-mother, (Mrs. 
Johnston,) is still living. 
I 'o] 



LETTERS TO HAYCRAFT 

I am really very glad of your 
letter, and shall be pleased to re- 
ceive another at any time. 
Yours very truly, 

A. Lincoln. 



( Private J 

Springfield, Illinois, 

June 4, i860. 

Dear Sir: 

Your second letter, dated May 
31st, is received. You suggest that 
a visit to the place of my nativity 
might be pleasant to me. Indeed 
it would. But would it be safe? 
Would not the people lynch me? 

The place on Knob Creek, men- 
tioned by Mr. Read, I remember 
very well; but I was not born there. 
[»] 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

As my parents have told me, I was 
born on Nolin, very much nearer 
Hodgen's Mill than the Knob Creek 
place is. My earliest recollection, 
however, is of the Knob Creek 
place. Like you, I belonged to the 
Whig party from its origin to its 
close. I never belonged to the 
American party organization; nor 
ever to a party called a Union party, 
though I hope I neither am, nor 
ever have been, less devoted to the 
Union than yourself or any other 
patriotic man. 

It may not be altogether without 
interest to let you know that my 
wife is a daughter of the late Rob- 
ert S. Todd, of Lexington, Ky., 
and that a half-sister of hers is the 
wife of Ben Hardin Helm, born and 
I w] 



LETTERS TO HAYCRAFT 

raised at your town, but residing at 
Louisville now, as I believe. 

Yours very truly, 

A. Lincoln. 



Springfield, Illinois, 

August 1 6, i860. 

My Dear Sir: 

A correspondent of the New 
York Her aid ^ who was here a 
week ago, writing to that paper, 
represents me as saying I had been 
invited to visit Kentucky, but that 
I suspected it was a trap to inveigle 
me into Kentucky in order to do 
violence to me. This is wholly a 
mistake. I said no such thing. I 
do not remember, but possibly I did 
mention my correspondence with 
[13] 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

you. But very certainly I was not 
guilty of stating, or insinuating, a 
suspicion of any intended violence, 
deception or other wrong, against 
me, by you or any other Kentuckian. 
Thinking the Herald correspond- 
ence might fall under your eye, I 
think it due to myself to enter my 
protest against the correctness of this 
part of it. I scarcely think the cor- 
respondent was malicious, but rather 
that he misunderstood what was said. 

Yours very truly, 

A. Lincoln. 

Springfield, Illinois, 

August 23, i860. 

My Dear Sir: 

Yours of the 19th just received. 
I now fear I may have given you 
[14] 



LETTERS TO HAYCRAFT 

some uneasiness by my last letter. 
I did not mean to intimate that I 
had, to any extent, been involved 
or embarrassed by you; nor yet to 
draw from you anything to relieve 
myself from difficulty. My only 
object was to assure you that I had 
not, as represented by the Herald 
correspondent, charged you with an 
attempt to inveigle me into Ken- 
tucky to do me violence. I believe 
no such thing of you or of Ken- 
tuckians generally; and I dislike to 
be represented to them as slandering 
them in that way. 

Yours very truly, 

A. Lincoln. 



[15] 




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X~^^ He bad, he said, on one ocwslori 

f been ibtiW to go lato Kentucky and revisit some of jwi 

•scenes with whcse history his father in hi, lifetime fa, 
been .doptifled. Or. asking by letter whether /,,33 
Igefa wonldbe preset, he *ce, vod no response; and 
fhe therefore came to the conclusion that the invitation 
vm a trap .aid by some deei^g person t0 , a ^ 

mtnntfavefcute for .hep^paee of doing violence to Uif [ 






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